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Cuomo, keep your word on housing for the homeless: View

Shelly Nortz
Published 12:59 p.m. ET March 21, 2017

In New York, placing homeless individuals in supportive housing has been found to save our government $10,100 per year, per tenant.

Advocates have protested in front of Gov. Cuomo's office for more than 30 consecutive weeks, pressing him to keep his promise to build thousands of units of supportive housing for the homeless.(Photo: SUBMITTED)

Mother Nature has uncanny timing and a powerful way of getting her message across. The blizzard dubbed Stella intervened as our leaders in Albany attempted to discuss critical funding that would help thousands of New Yorkers escape chronic homelessness.

It was the second time in less than a month that winter weather got in the way. In February, as members of the Cuomo administration were scheduled to testify before state legislators about the impact of the governor’s budget proposal on the homelessness crisis gripping our state, a major winter storm dropped nearly a foot of snow along the Albany to New York City corridor. Lawmakers were forced to postpone the hearing.

Stella dumped more than a foot and a half of snow across most of the state, both chambers shut down for the day, delaying the votes on their respective budget resolutions.

Apparently, even Mother Nature thinks it’s time to stop talking and start acting.

The irony here is twofold. First, unlike our elected leaders, homeless New Yorkers don’t have the luxury of staying home for the day. Each night, roughly 88,000 people statewide confront homelessness. We seem to hit a new record whenever someone takes another count.

Second, this problem could have been solved a year ago if Gov. Andrew Cuomo had simply kept his word.

Back in January 2016, Cuomo was involved one of his favorite games: One-upping New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had recently promised to build 15,000 units of supportive housing for the homeless. Never one to be outdone by a rival, Cuomo made a huge splash in his 2016 State of the State speech by promising to build 20,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years.

Advocates for the homeless were thrilled. After previous false starts, critical help finally seemed to be on the way. When the state budget was delivered in April 2016, it included funding for the first 6,000 of those units, but required an additional Memorandum of Understanding between the governor and leaders of the Assembly and the Senate before the funds could be released.

For the rest of the year, we waited. We protested weekly. We reminded everyone that as the homelessness crisis deepened, most of the state funds remained frozen, waiting for this MOU to be negotiated and signed.

For a governor who loves to brag about his ability to get hard things done when he really wants them, this should be easy. Who would stand in the way of helping the homeless after promising the most ambitious supportive housing effort in the nation?

Who would block supportive housing when studies throughout the country have repeatedly demonstrated that it pays for itself by reducing medical and psychiatric hospitalizations, detox and rehab programs, shelters and incarceration? In New York, placing homeless individuals in supportive housing has been found to save our government $10,100 per year, per tenant.

Instead of working to get the MOU signed and the funds released, the governor pointed fingers. He blamed lawmakers, saying he just couldn’t convince them to sign the MOU. He put out a press release, claiming to have unilaterally signed the MOU, hardly a promising negotiating tactic.

He even repeated his initial pledge to build 20,000 units of supportive housing when he presented yet another annual budget this past January — taking another opportunity to blame lawmakers for the state’s inability to release the funds he had promised a year earlier with such great fanfare.

So, imagine our surprise this week when both the Senate and Assembly included funding for supportive housing for the homeless in their budget resolutions. In fact, as Cuomo dithered, even his rival took action. Earlier this month, de Blasio published an RFP providing funds for the construction of 7,500 units of supportive housing for the homeless over the next 15 years.

Now it seems like everyone else is trying to send the governor a message: The time for excuses is over.

Now that everyone is on record supporting $2.5 billion for supportive and affordable housing in the 2017 budget, including the $1 billion needed to fund the first 6,000 supportive housing units, the only thing keeping thousands of homeless New Yorkers from the supportive housing they need is the willingness of the governor to lead the budget negotiation to a successful conclusion.

Maybe this will be the year Cuomo keeps his word. Assuming, of course, he meant it in the first place.

The writer is deputy executive director for policy at the Coalition for the Homeless.